March 2016

This past week the YAL chapter at Utah Valley University took to the halls to spread the message of free speech. People were encourage to write whatever they wanted to all over the "free speech ball."

Students seemed genuinely interested in learning more about YAL and being able to write on the ball. Some of the the things they wrote ranged from support for presidential candidates, to some very funny quotes. It didn't matter whether we agreed or disagreed with what was written on the ball, the important thing was that students were able to freely express themselves.

We eventually had to pack it in after an hour because we ran out a space for people to write on the ball. It was a hugely successful event for our club. We got 2 pages of signups, and handed out 250 fliers advertising our upcoming screening of Can We Take a Joke.

It's safe to say people are eager and willing to support free speech, one of the most important rights we have as citizens of this country.

On Wednesday March 30th, representatives from Syracuse YAL set up a table in the student center with a piece of poster board where students were encouraged to write whatever they wanted to share with the campus community. This event was encouraging freedom of speech which too often is being censored on today's college campuses.

The building was packed with excited students eager to get a spot on the bus to see the Men's basketball team compete in the final four, but a few stopped over to share their pearls of wisdom. Many wrote encouraging remarks for the team, while others shared their thoughts on the 2016 election. One student simply wrote: "There is nothing wrong with casting a vote for a candidate you like", which is something we could all stand to remember in our current ferocious political climate.

Overall this event was a great success and we got several interested students to sign-up. Next week, Syracuse YAL will be recruiting at an event for incoming freshmen at the carrier dome. Hopefully the future orangemen will enjoy freedom of expression as much as we all do.

The YAL chapter at Eastern University held a free speech ball event on the patio of our Dining Commons. The lovely people over at Plant Ops sacrificed their lunch break in order to help us blow up the ball. Initially, we had some issues transporting the ball due to strong winds throughout the day but we eventually were able to get it to where it needed to go.

We got around 80 signatures despite the small size of our school. Many students were excited and had a variety of kind things to say. Some of the things written on the ball included inspirational quotes, religious and spiritual sayings and comments of political controversies. One of the employees from the social media department on campus took a ton of pictures and promoted our event.

The highlight of the day was when one of our members got into a debate with a professor about free speech. The topics expressed in the discussion included issues of offense and morality.

Overall, it was a successful and exciting day and we hope to host at least one free speech ball event every semester. The fight for free speech continues at Eastern University.

Recently, Young Americans for Liberty at UC Berkeley hosted their kickoff event, with a “Free Speech Ball” that was moved around campus. As a University, UC Berkeley has a reputation for being the origin of the campus Free Speech Movement, a widespread movement of student activism during the 1960s. You may recall this iconic picture of Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement:

In this spirit, YAL at Cal decided that free speech at Berkeley needed a revitalization—indeed, throughout America, college campuses are witnessing an unprecedented assault on free speech. As an organization which seeks to promote liberty by winning on principle, we decided that our first event on campus needed to remind the campus community of the principles which it claims to defend. We felt that our Free Speech Ball was the ideal way to do this, and students were told to write whatever they wished—even controversial speech.

Comments on the ball included everything from political comments, writings in foreign languages, cartoon doodles, and funny/inspirational quotes. When students approached the ball to write something on it, we offered them a flyer for our first club meeting, which was held that evening. We explained our organization and our desire to defend the entire Bill of Rights by advocating for principles of liberty. Ironically, many students asked if there were rules for writing on the Free Speech Ball, a question which we found troubling. Many also scribbled out the writings of others which they found to be “offensive,” and while we didn’t stop them from doing so, we told them that we disagreed with their actions.

The YAL chapter at the University of Nebraska - Omaha held an Incarceration Nation event. Despite the poor weather we were able to come across enthusiastic students who were eager to learn more about Criminal Justice Reform.

Katie White took the lead by organizing and executing the construction of our Prison Door with some assistance from Andrew Sakalosky. As a result we were able to reach out to students about the massive incarceration within the United States. Many of them seemed interested in joining YAL and learning more about the organization.

We are now making our plans to screen "Can We Take a Joke?" on April 13th. We have our Free Speech Beach Ball and are excited to let the students at UNO learn more about the importance of Free Speech on College campuses.

Last month, Xavier University’s Young Americans for Liberty chapter engaged students and faculty outside of the university’s cafeteria about the issue of U.S. Foreign Policy and our usage of drones overseas. Setting up outside the cafeteria from 10am until 3pm, we talked to students as they were going to lunch in the hopes of sparking some intellectual conversation over food with their classmates and friends.

Most of the students responded very positively to our display. Many stopped to ask what our club was all about and how they could get involved. Best of all, most people were interested and astonished by how much involvement the US has had over seas over the course of their lifetimes.

During the five hours, we almost completely filled up our map and got over 40 sign ups! After following up with them, multiple new faces showed up to our meeting to continue the dialogue. We are excited to continue to bring awareness to our fellow students and spread the message of liberty.

The Pearl River YAL chapter recently conducted a "Visualize the Debt" event. We decided to do this event by conducting a survey as to which issues our student body felt was most important, to our surprise, the national debt won by a landslide.

The overall response yesterday was good, the wall drew much attention and we were able to get several signups as a result. This event provided us with a good discussion topic for people to stop by the table and ask questions. We predict we will be able to get some new dedicated members due to this event.

For our next event we will do something promoting free speech. We are having a meeting this Thursday to determine exactly what that event will be.

The YAL chapter at Indiana University Purdue University held a free speech wall in the courtyard of Democracy Plaza. We tried to reach out to students to show the importance of free speech on college campuses.

After a slow start, students started pouring in and the board got populated. People were coming from all different directions to write on the wall. Students seemed genuinely interested in learning more about YAL and free speech reform and many students signed up.

Although the wind was a challenge all day, we were able to get two boards going. In a short period of time the poster got filled up. Overall this event was a huge success.

The fight for free speech isn't over at IUPU's Democracy Plaza. We will continue the fight for year-round access to free speech boards on our campus. We also look forward to continuing to spread the message of liberty to our fellow students.

Constitutions are flying off of the table here at The Ohio State University. We set up a table in our Student Union for a few hours Tuesday and just about ran out of pocket constitutions.

We had a lot of great conversations and new signups, who will hopefully become new recruits pretty soon. Next week, we will be having a meeting devoted to discussing our constitutional rights as citizens, comparing the freedoms that we should have to those that we do.

We are also looking forward to our debut of "Can We Take a Joke" on April 13th, and will hopefully be joined by some other organizations on campus. The future looks bright for YAL at The Ohio State University!

On Thursday, March 24, 2016, the Young Americans for Liberty chapter at the University of Utah held a “Visualize the Debt” tabling event with a massive Debt Clock. We wanted to inform students on the importance of this issue.

Everyone that passed by noticed the debt and many took pictures of it. We wanted to show that the debt is something that shouldn’t be ignored and that it does have an effect on them. We talked to several people throughout the day and had almost twenty signups.

We had the opportunity to table next to Turning Point USA and we worked together sharing an effective message of how inefficient our government is and how people can get involved to be effective in supporting the message of liberty.